1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to lighted artificial trees and more specifically to artificial trees that are lighted by a fibre optic light source.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Lighted artificial trees such as Christmas trees have been known in the art for many years. With the advent of fibre optic bundles, artificial trees have been lighted in the past by use of a single bundle of optic fibres illuminated by a single lamp. Color provided to the optical fibres was changed by rotating a transparent color disk between the end of the optical fibre bundles and the lamp.
Due to the limited illuminating range of the single lamp the number of optical fibre bundles incorporated in such structure was restricted, thus limiting the size of the Christmas tree employing such construction. Additionally, there has been no satisfactory method of efficiently lighting all of the fibres of trees that can be divided in parts in order to reduce their package sizes. This is because light is inevitably lost at the junctions of each divided section and, therefore, cannot propagate efficiently from a light source at the bottom of the tree all the way to the treetop. Thus, overall brightness of the optical fibres was reduced significantly on the upper portions of the trees.
The present invention is designed to provide a fibre optic lighted artificial tree that can be divided into lower and upper sections and yet still have the ability of having all of the optical fibres of the tree fully illuminated when assembled. The improved lighting provided by the present invention is accomplished by the use of a separate light source for each portion of the tree, with each source employing only one lamp. Consequently, the present invention facilitates the manufacture of taller and fuller optical fibre lighted artificial Christmas trees, but does so in a manner so that the trees can be readily manufactured with a minimum of expense and the trees can be packaged in relatively small containers.
The present invention provides a coaxial light emitter that serves as the trunk for a fibre optic lighted artificial tree that is formed in two separable sections, each individually lighted by separate light sources to permit the tree to essentially be separated into two portions to reduce the size of the packaging in which they can be sold or stored. The light emitter serves as the main trunk portion for the tree and incorporates two separate fibre optic light sources so that the tree can easily and readily be divided into two portions to present a reduced size for packaging.
In a preferred embodiment the coaxial light emitter has a lower portion comprised of a tree stand with a fibre optic light source, a first tree stabilizing member and a first trunk section that is supported by the stabilizing member and acts to provide a support for tree branches and optical fibres that form the lower portion of the tree. The light emitter further includes an upper portion that is comprised of an individual light source that is separate and distinct from the light source of the stand, a second tree stabilizer member that is mounted on the top portion of the second light source for supporting a second trunk section that extends upwardly therefrom and serves as a support for securing branches and fibre optic strands to the upper portion of the tree and also serves as a support for the top of the tree.
Thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide illumination of an artificial tree by fibre optic strands in such fashion that the tree is not significantly limited in size or fullness due to the limitation of the light provided to the fibre optic strands throughout the tree. Still further objects and advantages of the present invention will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having reference to the following specification and the drawings which are described below.